Now, Sarah has more than the body language of her infectious grin. She can give a purposeful kick to the laundry basket
to let her parents know she wants to run a load of laundry – she’d never even seen the basement laundry at their old house, and
now she can take charge of carrying her own laundry to her room on her wheelchair.
Even more fundamentally, she can now communicate by simply going where she wants to go. If she’s had enough of being
outside, she’ll drive around the back of the house – on the ramp designed for her – to let her parents know she wants to go
inside. She can now do things we take for granted, Teri says. “When she’s tired, she goes into her room and we know she wants to
go to bed. We had no way to know that before.”
No wonder Sarah is thrilled – like every budding adult, she craves independence. “She has a lot of frustrations in her life,”
says her mom. “It’s just so cool to see her be able to do the simple things in life – going to your room when you want, saying what
you want to do, getting around to things that interest you. It’s been an amazing life-changer for her.”
Sarah Chmielewski can’t say it in words, but she’s made it clear: More than ever, she feels at home. SL
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